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Barry Diller: The movie business as before is finished and will never come back

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Re: Barry Diller: The movie business as before is finished and will never come back

#81

Post by socialist_coder »

Damogran6 wrote: post #79
socialist_coder wrote: post #75

I think "Movies", as we remember them from the decades of yore, will have a resurgence in the near future due to 2 things: 1) The demand for movies outside of what the streaming services are making. 2) Most aspects of movie production go completely digital to bring costs down astronomically. The easiest way to embrace digital is to just make an animated movie that looks animated with some interesting cool art style /…

Which will impact the QUANTITY of movies produced, but not necessarily the QUALITY. Granted, there's always been B-movies (and D-list actors), but surfacing interesting storytelling is going to be harder, the more we create.

What I'm saying is that A list people will use these same techniques to make QUALITY movies at a budget that makes it economically viable to release to a smaller streaming audience.

Re: Barry Diller: The movie business as before is finished and will never come back

#82

Post by ElViajero »

mihaic wrote: post #26

What I find exhausting is having any systemic criticism of the movie/music industry met with arguments along the lines of: "It was just different, you're merely nostalgic/you have golden age syndrome", and have a hard time answering back with anything except: "It really was better, sometime things do get substantially worse". While technologically everything has improved, creativity feel like going from the golden ag…

> What argument can one make when the burden of proof is to show cultural regression?

First, you will need to give examples of what kind of movies you find "creative" that were done in the past and there is no current equivalent for that level of creativity.

"Jojo Rabbit", "Parasite", "Blade Runner 2049", "Coco", "Lady Bird", "Arrival", "The Nice Guys", ... that is the past 5 years with one almost missing because the pandemic. Is any of that any good for you?

What do you think that it was so creative in the past and has no comparation today?

Re: Barry Diller: The movie business as before is finished and will never come back

#83

Post by Apocryphon »

spywaregorilla wrote: post #38
mihaic wrote: post #26

What I find exhausting is having any systemic criticism of the movie/music industry met with arguments along the lines of: "It was just different, you're merely nostalgic/you have golden age syndrome", and have a hard time answering back with anything except: "It really was better, sometime things do get substantially worse". While technologically everything has improved, creativity feel like going from the golden ag…

They're wrong, and the reason they believe it is because they're stuck on older mediums. In music, the radio and the record store defined the market. You had a small window so you invested big and mainstream stuff tended to be pretty good. Now music access is decentralized and you can chase a long tail of niche personal tastes. Music is incredibly healthy right now. There's so much great content going in myriad diffe…

I think both you and the GP are conflating the movie and music industries a little too much, but I agree with your points more. Music is indeed going through a renaissance, and tech has very much helped with discoverability of indie artists. Movies I feel are a different medium as they are more capital and resource-constrained. It's more difficult to cultivate a long tail of indie films that can match those of the blockbusters (whereas music quality between major label and indie is far more fungible).

On the other hand, if one was to lower the definition of "movie" to moving pictures entertainment, there is a bonanza of content on YouTube and other video streaming services. But they are not in the same format of traditional movies.

Re: Barry Diller: The movie business as before is finished and will never come back

#84

Post by nineplay »

majormajor wrote: post #72
nineplay wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People who complain that nothing good is made anymore must just be looking at what's advertised heavily I can't speak for everyone but I think it's hard to find anything 'fun'. The indie films inevitably seem to be deadly serious, whether it's terrible crimes or failing relationships or the inevitably of death. If a viewer wants 'fun' then they're stuck with formulaic superhero blockbusters. It feels different. Spi…

That's a broader cultural issue for all sorts of art today, not a movie specific thing. The depressed/angry mood has been building for a couple decades or more, and getting more widespread. Even something intentionally over the top like Fast and Furious or Marvel has more "serious issue" stuff in many of the installments from the last 5 years than previously. It's easier in the news to see all the bad stuff that used…

That's an interesting point. Certainly the zeitgeist among the millennials seems to be that things are bad and they are only going to get worse. Maybe Star Wars seems hopelessly optimistic since civilizations will implode well before they invent hyperdrives.

Re: Barry Diller: The movie business as before is finished and will never come back

#85

Post by at_a_remove »

afavour wrote: post #13

The actual quote (with my emphasis added): > "The movie business *as before* is finished and will never come back." And I think that's correct. Superhero blockbusters taking over all box office receipts was one thing, but now those blockbusters are becoming deeply tied to streaming services like Disney+ that's bringing content into people's homes and away from movie theatres. I won't mourn movie theatres (though I ho…

I soured on the superhero franchise business due to a combination of factors (the out of character Man of Steel, that first boilerplate Thor film, the ghastly Green Lantern, and finally reading Worm made everything else seem shallow by comparison) and have stepped back to look at it as an industry in a kind of spiral of intolerance to risk.

They want product, they want it on a pipeline, they want guaranteed returns and they do not want to gamble about it. This has been true for a long time but we're seeing a difference of degree here. Movie production is not merely evolving but speciating -- and I think the new species is going to look like a subscription streaming service (with tie-in product) that releases dopamine-tweaking algorithmic product on the kind of tick-tock schedule for which Intel longs.

Re: Barry Diller: The movie business as before is finished and will never come back

#86

Post by mullingitover »

outlawBand wrote: post #73
mullingitover wrote: post #67

We're arguably repeating history, where 100 years ago film was the upstart (but rapidly growing) business and vaudeville was the established incumbent. Film offered far more creative possibilities and were dramatically more immersive than the entertainment it replaced. Today the film industry is the incumbent - profits have peaked, and the upstart video game business has already eclipsed it. Once again, video games h…

...but there is a huge percentage of the population that doesn't like / play video games.

It's true, and yet even with a lot of people not being gamers[1]:

> Global videogame revenue is expected to surge 20% to $179.7 billion in 2020, according to IDC data, making the videogame industry a bigger moneymaker than the global movie and North American sports industries combined.

So the fact that there are still lots of people who aren't gamers just means that the video game industry has plenty of room for growth.

[1] https://www.marketwatch.com/story/videogames-are-a-bigger-in...

Re: Barry Diller: The movie business as before is finished and will never come back

#87

Post by QuesnayJr »

lapetitejort wrote: post #7
werber wrote: post #3

The "movie business" is far from dead, there's an insane amount of production now and the breadth of those productions is far wider. The only death is the exclusivity of the industry, stories like the movie Tangerine (shot on iphones) or the recent release Zola (based on a twitter feed) are reaching audiences along with a ton of others that never would have seen them. Contrary to that, the highest grossing films of a…

I've moved from watching movies and TV shows without end to watching limited series/anthology shows. The format hits the sweet spot between watching a self contained story and the anticipation of a TV show. I don't think the format gets the love it deserves, but networks like Disney+ (most of Marvel's recent outings), Netflix (Godless, Russian Doll, Alias Grace, The Queen's Gambit, The Haunting of Hill House), and HB…

I liked every limited run TV show you mentioned that I've seen (Russian Doll, The Queen's Gambit, Watchmen), so I think maybe I should watch the rest.

Re: Barry Diller: The movie business as before is finished and will never come back

#88

Post by xnyan »

mywacaday wrote: post #60
handrous wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I won't mourn movie theatres (though I hope places emulate the likes of Alamo Drafthouse and do dinner, drinks and let us make an evening out of watching a movie), but I do worry about things like movie financing. It feels the industry has split in two, either making super-expensive superhero blockbusters or super cheap indie films. I'm informed by my cinemaphile friend that exactly this phenomenon has been much re…

What would have been considered a mid budget film?

Moreso than it's production cost (though that's a big part of it) a mid-budget is a hollywood-level (full production and cast) movie that does not attempt to be all things to all people. This could be something like a romantic comedy, a medium-scale character study or a high-concept scifi - something that costs say 40 million to make, returns 80 million and is never intended to be a blockbuster.

Lots of reasons why they are less common. One is absolutely that more and more, TV is able to serve as well or better in the mid-budget role, the quality of TV has vastly improved in the last 20 years. Studios are less interested in investing 40 million to double their money and would rather risk hundreds of millions on the chance to make billions.

Re: Barry Diller: The movie business as before is finished and will never come back

#89

Post by sidlls »

spywaregorilla wrote: post #47
afavour wrote: post #13

The actual quote (with my emphasis added): > "The movie business *as before* is finished and will never come back." And I think that's correct. Superhero blockbusters taking over all box office receipts was one thing, but now those blockbusters are becoming deeply tied to streaming services like Disney+ that's bringing content into people's homes and away from movie theatres. I won't mourn movie theatres (though I ho…

> It makes me feel like a grouch to complain about the uber-popular, widely loved thing but this intertwined superhero universe exhausts me. I don't want to have to watch three previous movies and two TV shows to fully enjoy the movie that's in front of me. So I watch a lot more limited series TV instead... and maybe that's just fine? To me, this is like complaining that you don't want to have to read the Fellowship…

Almost nobody expects their "cotton candy" entertainment to require that level of effort regularly. It's fine if a small handful of things based on prior art ("Return of the King") are around; healthy even. When that's all there is, though, that seems like a problem.

Re: Barry Diller: The movie business as before is finished and will never come back

#90

Post by fullshark »

spywaregorilla wrote: post #38
mihaic wrote: post #26

What I find exhausting is having any systemic criticism of the movie/music industry met with arguments along the lines of: "It was just different, you're merely nostalgic/you have golden age syndrome", and have a hard time answering back with anything except: "It really was better, sometime things do get substantially worse". While technologically everything has improved, creativity feel like going from the golden ag…

They're wrong, and the reason they believe it is because they're stuck on older mediums. In music, the radio and the record store defined the market. You had a small window so you invested big and mainstream stuff tended to be pretty good. Now music access is decentralized and you can chase a long tail of niche personal tastes. Music is incredibly healthy right now. There's so much great content going in myriad diffe…

I'm with you on music, but movies? These streaming services are all making the same type of content, and browsing any streaming service for content just feels like looking at a wall of direct to video films at your local video store from 20 years ago + cable TV shows.

Maybe it's because trying new music is so costless compared to new movies/tv shows and I'm ignorant? Maybe it's because good music can be made for a lot less money? IDK but this hardly feels like the beginning of a golden age of long tail movies.

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